


Even in the Dust We Shine

by Damalia (Achrya)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, But kind of, Comeplay, Communication Failure, Discussion of Abortion, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fluff, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medical issues, Mpreg, Multi, Not Exactly Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Protective Hulk, Rimming, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-20 01:22:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4768244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony and Bruce became mates children were something they never gave any thought to one way or the other. In their defense age, a ton of radiation, a questionable serum, a lifetime of suppressants, and so many other factors just made the whole thing seem improbable. But ‘improbable’ isn’t ‘impossible’ and if anyone should know that it’s the two of them.</p><p>Note: Updates slowed for NaNoWriMo</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby, We Were Born With Fire and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Meh. I was in the mood for mpreg so here be mpreg. This...might be a first for me? I do enjoy a good ABO fic but usually everyone hates babies and...yeah. To make this work Tony and Bruce are a bit younger than they’re supposed to be (Pushing 40 instead of pushing 50).  
> Not connected to my other ABO stuff.  
> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own (and probably numerous)  
> Pairings: Bruce/Tony mainly with a lot of Steve/Sam/Bucky (AKA Quietly sarcastic Steve and his openly trolly omegas) and other things as I feel they make sense.  
> Warnings: Mpreg, knotting, frank discussions of abortion, angst, pack dynamics, poor coping skills, denial, feels, rimming, fingering, unsafe sex, two very smart men who are also idiots.

“How long have you two been at this?”

Tony blinked blearily then turned around slowly to look at Steve. The other man was standing just inside of their workshop/lab/mad genius territory, arms crossed over his chest, wearing his ‘I already know the answer and I’m just baiting you’ face. Clint called it 'Cap's asshole look' for short. Sam was just behind him, leaning against the door frame.

He cast a look at Bruce who gave no indication he’d even heard Steve which was a testament to how engrossed he was in the data on the Starkpad in his hand.

Or he was pretending.

With Bruce it could really be either.

“Friday?”

“You and Dr. Banner have been working on the project for Dr. Richards for approximately 83 hours.” Friday responded promptly and not without a note of tartness. “I suggested you sleep 30 hours ago and you threatened to shut me down until I learned how to keep my opinions to myself. _Boss_.”

Tony didn’t remember any of that but it sounded like something he would say while caught up in a project. He rubbed at his eyes then smiled wanly. “We might have lost track of time.”

Steve arched an eyebrow. “No kidding. Shelve it for the night, get some sleep.”

Tony opened his mouth to tell Steve that they were fine and, most importantly, were on the verge of cracking the biolock on the strange alien chest Reed Richards had brought them. He yawned instead.

He could actually hear, literally hear, Sam’s smirk. He glared in the other man’s direction and seriously reconsidered every nice thing he’d ever said about him. Instead of being quelled by the glare like a normal person Sam’s smirk just grew. Tony turned his gaze back to Steve.

"Your mate is a jerk." 

"Who? Sam?" The blond looked confused. 

"I'm a saint." Sam said, leaning over Steve's shoulder. "A paragon of patience and kindness. An actual gift."

Steve nodded emphatically. "It's true."

Tony knew when he was being fucked with (it happened a lot when dealing with 'Cap and Mates') so he turned his attention to his own mate. It took a little work to get Bruce to agree to come to bed and Steve spent the entire time sighing and fussing as he tended to do.

Steve wasn’t just the leader of their unruly bunch, he was their pack alpha, the public face of the team and the one they all more or less deferred to, insofar as they deferred to anyone.

Tony had never had much use for the emphasis people put on their secondary genders or in adhering to the image of the willingly submissive and demure omega who turned into a needy cock starved thing behind closed doors or during heats. He hadn’t longed for a proper pack, being perfectly happy with the little family he had in Pepper and Rhodey. He especially hadn’t had any use for alphas who were always full of swagger and attitude. The ones he’d encountered had been more interested in his money and the status that would have come with taming and mating the willful Tony Stark than anything else.

But then he’d had the team in his tower, wedging their ways into his life and under his skin and slowly his family had extended beyond his best friends. He’d become part of a pack, and one headed by an alpha at that and it should have been strange but it wasn’t.

It helped that Steve was cut from a completely different cloth than the other alphas Tony had known before. He was more interested in chasing after them to make sure they ate, slept, and got checked out by medical after fights than being some big strong pillar of virility and...alphaness. Steve was, in essence, a den mother. A constantly annoyed, tired, and stretched thin den mother that tolerated all of them anyway.

It was easy to fall in under his leadership without any of the resentment Tony usually had for people who tried to assert their authority over him. Steve wasn’t about being listened to because he was an alpha or because he was stronger, he wanted their respect and loyalty because he had earned it and because they wanted to follow him.

He made a group that shouldn’t work (Alphas formed bachelor units on occasion but the minute you added betas and omegas to that territory and mating disputes were supposed to erupt, but there was none of that with them in spite of how any alphas were in the tower) work.

Steve continued to gripe quietly as they rode the elevator up to the floor he shared with his mates. Sam grinned toothily the entire time, clearly taking delight in how exasperated his alpha was. Tony listened with half an ear, the rest of his attention on Bruce who was leaning heavily against the wall and trying not to yawn.

The elevator stopped and the door opened to reveal Tony’s penthouse. Tony shuffled off, Bruce close behind.

“You know when you two bonded I actually thought I’d be looking after you less.” Steve called after them. Tony turned, something appropriately witty on the tip of his tongue, but the doors were already shutting.

Never let it be said Rogers didn’t have a great sense of timing.

He made a face. “I’m not sure which one of us that was supposed to insult.”

“I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.” Bruce said, turning tired eyes onto the kitchen. “You hungry? I could cook.”

Tony considered the idea of food, letting it roll over in his mind while he tried to assess his own hunger and recall the last time he’d eaten. He was almost positive a green smoothie and some dried fruit had been eaten in the past few hours and now that he was upstairs he had to admit that he was pretty damn tired. He could feel the heaviness in his limbs and the slowness in his brain that came with lack of sleep. If Steve hadn’t shown up he probably would have crashed before long.

The idea of collapsing into his bed was an appealing one.

He shook his head and bit back another yawn. “I’m good.”

“Clearly.” Fingers brushed his arm lightly then Bruce moved closer, bending down to sniff at him. “You’re warm. Do you feel okay?”

“I feel tired.” He said lightly, turning to head for the bedroom. “Friday, blackout mode.”

Bruce had a ‘thing’ about the AI watching them sleep. It didn’t matter how often Tony pointed out that Friday wasn’t really ‘watching them’ like a human would his mate insisted that it was creepy because they seemed human. Tony supposed that was the price he paid for being as brilliant as he was. Blackout mode turned off her eyes and ears in the bedroom and bathroom, which was enough privacy for Bruce's comfort. (He'd extended to the command to the rest of the team because, as it turned out, it was a hangup a lot of people had.)

Bruce fell into step behind him without a word but, once they were in the dim room, wrapped a hand around his arm and started guiding him towards the bathroom. He looked longingly at the perfectly made and oh so inviting bed but once the door was shut after him he let himself be stripped out of his clothes without protest.

Bruce turned on the shower then, after checking the water, shed his own clothes and tugged him inside. He let himself be moved around so he was leaning against the other man, back to front with one hand curled loosely around his hip, under the soothing spray of the water.

Not for the first time Tony thanked whoever had suggested to him that he get a top of the line shower. Artful dark stone, multiple shower heads with controllable water pressure, a convenient bench built into the corner that had served as a spot for some pretty fantastic shower sex, and more than big enough for him and another person.

Bruce washed his hair first, massaging over his scalp with firm but gentle touches and stroking through his hair. He could feel the soothing rumble of noise in the other man’s chest and, as fingers swept over the spot just under his ear where his scent gland was, he knew what Bruce was asking.

Omegas were known to be susceptible to noise and touch from alphas, particularly their alpha mates. A few quiet murmurs and a light touch could reduce some to a pliant and thoughtless state. That wasn’t Tony, he’d spent his whole life around people trying to use his secondary gender to control him, and it took a fuck of a lot more than some purring and touching to get to him.

Bruce, however, could be an exception to the rule.

When Tony wanted him to be.

They weren’t together because they were an alpha and an omega. He didn’t look to Bruce for protection or validation or whatever he was supposed to want from alphas and Bruce didn’t expect submission or much of anything from him, really. For the most part their natures weren’t factors in their lives, heats and ruts being the obvious exceptions.

But sometimes, on occasion, it was nice to fall into the primal part of himself he mostly ignored. He wasn’t about to spend his life curling up at Bruce’s feet or splayed out on his lap, but every now and then wasn’t so bad. It let him turn off the constant chatter in his brain and let everything be instinct, scents, and feeling.

He knew the same was true of his mate so if Bruce felt like being the doting alpha and wanted him to be the compliant omega he could do that.

Bruce held him a moment longer, nuzzling against his neck and mouthing over that patch of skin, then pushed him forward so he was leaning against the wall, hands splayed out over the slick stone.  

A soft cloth skimmed his back, working up a lather on his skin, and strong fingers pressed into tense muscles through it. He sighed and let his head drop forward some so his forehead was pressed against the stone as well. Bruce’s hand rubbed over his ass and he pressed back, earning a squeeze and a quiet laugh. Then Bruce was working lower, over his thighs and down to his calves.

Tony glanced over his shoulder then down to where Bruce was kneeling behind him. A warm feeling curled low in his stomach at the sight. Warm brown eyes flicked up to look at him through wet lashes then crinkled around the edges as Bruce’s lips curled into a half smile.

“Turn.”

He did as told, putting a hand on Bruce’s shoulder to steady himself, keeping his eyes on the alpha in front of him. His mind was wrapped in a sleepy haze and weariness was weighing him down, making him sway on his feet, but the sight of Bruce on his knees in front of him had parts of him showing interest anyway. The part of him that was all omega, and closer to the surface than it was normally allowed, hummed it’s contentment with his mate.

Bruce’s hands moved over him, washcloth forgotten, in slow slippery sweeps, nails scraping here and there to leave tingling trails behind. Everything seemed to fall away, blocked out by the sound of flowing water and the curtain of steam forming around them, leaving only a small intimate world.

He didn’t pay more than the necessary attention to his balls and cock, cupping and stroking gently then moving on, but he was still half hard by the time his alpha was back on his feet. Tony was drawn close for a kiss, soft and lingering, and he pressed closer water slicked skin lining up from chest to knee. He looped his arms around Bruce’s neck and every time his alpha tried to move back he pulled him back for another shallow languid kiss, slowly coercing his mate into a firmer response.

Bruce muttered something about sleep against his lips; he responded with a plaintive murmur of “Alpha.” and a deliberate roll of his hips. There was a spike in Bruce’s scent, a flash of arousal, then he was pushed hard into the wall, pain skittering over his back as his mouth was licked into.

He was on his stomach on the bed soon enough, sheets twisted around his hands and knees digging deep into the mattress. Bruce’s hands were on his ass, fingers holding him open and digging into his skin while his tongue worked inside of his entrance, drawing the slick from him. Tony groaned as the warm muscle dove deeper, twisting and curling inside of him, and pressed back against the wet heat of his mate’s mouth. He was torn between trying to grind down against the bed and tilting his hips up to give Bruce a better angle.

When Bruce drew back with one last long lick over his pucker and up the cleft of his ass he whined involuntarily. One of his mate’s hands curled around his hip and hauled him up until he was on his knees and resting on his forearms, erection swaying heavily between his legs.  

Bruce shifted behind him, fingers of his free hand rubbing over his entrance then a finger dipped inside. Bruce went maddeningly slow, working one finger in and out until Tony was slick and dripping. He kept the same unhurried pace when adding a second, spreading his fingers to stretch him wider than curling them to rub over his prostate with light whispery touches.

It wasn’t enough, more teasing than anything, but it still had Tony groaning and whimpering into the bed, liquid heat pooling inside of his belly. He felt hot all over, skin tight and uncomfortable around him, and unbearably hard. He rocked back against Bruce’s fingers, clenching around them and wanting more.

“Please, alpha, please.”

He knew what to say and do, knew just what Bruce wanted to hear when he was like this, and he didn’t mind it. He thought sometimes that his pride should have been offended at the idea of begging someone for something but it was easy with Bruce.

Fingers withdrew with an obscene wet noise and a hand pressed against the small of his back, pushing him down so he was once again flat on the bed. Bruce slid up over him, skin hot and damp, the scent of arousal and alpha musk heavy in the air.

Bruce rubbed against him, a blunt pressure against his entrance, the pushed in. Tony pushed a breath out through his nose and let his eyes fall shut at the familiar burn and stretch. It was good, it was always so good, opening up for Bruce like his, feeling him slide in inch by inch until he bottomed out and all Tony could focus on was the feeling of being spread wide and filled up.

Bruce hovered over him, hands coming down on either side of his body as he let some of his weight rest on Tony. He rocked forward with a short circular movement that had his cock dragging right over his prostate and sent sparks up his spine.

He kept an almost painfully slow pace, barely moving at all. He just rolled his hips and moved against him with lazy shallow thrusts, grinding against that sensitive bundle of nerves and slowly, so slowly, taking Tony apart. He wanted to press back but Bruce was solid against him, pinning him in place so all he could do was lay there and take what was given.

He couldn’t help but sink into it eventually, losing himself as his awareness narrowing to the feeling of Bruce inside of him, pressing down against him, slick sheets rubbing over skin and his cock, heat and sweat and slippery liquid coating his thighs. His alpha was quiet, save the sounds of his deep panting breaths, but Tony was loud enough for both of them, moaning, whimpering, and cursing as he crawled closer to his orgasm.

He arched up and rutted forward as best he could, seeking more of Bruce and more of the not quite enough friction from the bed, then reached back blindly. His hand found Bruce’s hair and sank in, soft sweat dampened strands twining around his fingers, and pulled. A growl vibrated through his mate then the other man was hunching forward, plastering against him fully. Bruce nuzzled at his neck and he tilted his head instinctively as the smell of ink and chemicals and alpha blocked everything else out. He could practically feel it in the back of his throat and sinking into his skin, taste it on his tongue. Bruce’s mouth touched his shoulder, wet and hot, and then teeth were sinking in and the world went white.

\---

Tony went stiff underneath him and let out a keening noise as he came. He tightened around Bruce’s cock, muscles fluttering like they wanted to pull him deeper, and he nearly came along with him but all too soon the tension was draining out of Tony.

Bruce listened, a smile curving as lips, as his mate muttered something he couldn’t quite make sense of then fell silent, breathing becoming shallow and even. He pushed himself up and slid out of Tony even as his passage gripped at him temptingly.

He settled down, leaning against the headboard, and wrapped a hand around himself.

“What’re you doing?” Tony’s words were quiet and slurred. When he looked over he found Tony, one dark eye cracked open and the rest of his face hidden in his pillow, looking at him.

Bruce blinked at him then looked down at the hand holding his cock very deliberately. Tony huffed in annoyance.

“No. C’mback.” He punctuated the sleepy command with a yawn. “Inside.”  

His dick twitched at Tony’s words but he wasn’t interested in keeping his omega up or taking more just so he could get off. Bruce had wanted to take care of his mate and he’d done that. He was more than fine finishing up on his own.

“You don’t have to-”

A hand snaked out and wrapped around his wrist. “Not just for you.”

Another blink then a throaty noise as the words sank in. Tony really had a gift for saying things that cut right through him and tugged at the tightly controlled ‘alpha’ on the inside. Soft needy omega wants that made Bruce’d brain whisper ‘mate, omega, mine’ but were rarely parts of himself Tony was willing to expose.

Not that he was any more likely to wear the parts of himself that were all instinct and emotion close to the surface.  

He pushed Tony so he was resting on his side and nudged his leg up to expose his swollen pucker before settling in behind him. He stroked himself to the edge of his orgasm then, pressing his face into the back of Tony’s neck, guided himself back into his mate. Tony shivered and tightened around him.

He sighed, a tired but sweet noise that squeezed Bruce’s heart in a vice and made it hard to breathe. “Deep.”

His breathing hitched then he was doing his best to comply, thrusting in once, twice and then he was over the edge, hips snapping forward to seat himself as deeply as he could while spilling into his mate. He was aware, dimly, of his knot inflating and the almost itchy feeling of skin stretching as well as Tony’s quiet hum of contentment.

When he came back to himself and the world was less fuzzy around the edges he was already firmly locked into his mate and Tony was more or less asleep. He carefully leaned forward, caught a sliver of dark brown and a half smile, then settled back down, winding an arm around Tony’s waist.

As a general rule he found knotting inconvenient (one of the few things he appreciated about getting older was that it happened much less often than it had in his teens and twenties) but Tony seemed happy enough and the position wasn’t an overly awkward one. It would be fine to maybe close his eyes while he waited out the knot.

He fell asleep, lulled by the warmth and deep even breathing of his mate, nose pressed against Tony’s neck.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. You're still here? ...whelp. ...*hangs head* I'm sorry. I'm trash. Utter trash. BUT There's plot in the next chapter I promise. Also smut. ...whatever, that's how babies are made okay! This smut is very important to the plot and not at all self-indulgent. ...shut up.


	2. Nothing Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: In which things are a teeny bit not right but no one thinks about it as hard as they should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: ...totally plot relevant sex. I promise. ...don’t you look at me like that.

Bruce woke up to the feelings of damp skin pressed against his own and quiet gasping noises from his mate. He acted without thinking, pushing his knee between Tony’s legs and dropping kisses against heated skin.

Tony whimpered softly, a wounded noise from the back of his throat, and Bruce pressed in closer until they were touching from shoulders to knees. Tony was hot, burning hot, and sweat was coating his skin, adding a tang of salt to the scent of _slicksweetmine_ that was deep in his nose and coating his tongue. It was heavy in the air and had an almost physical presence, seeping into his skin and blocking out everything else.

He followed the curve of Tony’s neck to the hollow behind his ear, dragging his nose over his scent gland and groaning softly. Tony smelled amazing, perfect, and part of him was buzzing with the desire to take and mate, to push his omega’s legs further apart and sink into him.

His mate was in heat, it was flooding all of his senses, a familiar song that resonated in his bones. His mate needed him, was calling to him in all those ways neither of them could control, and his body was responding already, had started to do so before he’d even woken up, getting ready to meet his mate’s needs. His knot had deflated during the night, allowing him to come free of his mate, but he was achingly hard.

Omegas went into heat, started putting out all the signals that marked them as ready and able to be bred, alphas were hardwired to pick up on those signals and put out their own marking them as virile and able to breed, and then it was a loop of pheromones and sex hormones. In mated pairs that response was elevated and could lead to rut in alphas, a heightened state of arousal. stamina, and aggression.

“Bruce.” He drew out his name, turned it into a husky groan and then Bruce was up and moving, pressing his mate flat on his back and climbing between his legs. They moved with the ease that came from lots of practice, mouths touching, teeth scraping, skin sliding, and fingers dipping in. Tony opened up for him without much work, heat making him relaxed and needy, so wet that slick was dripping over Bruce’s fingers and palm.

Tony watched him through his lashes, eyes bright and glassy, pupils blown wide and lips parted.

Bruce dipped down as he bent his fingers, catching heated moans as they fell from Tony’s lips before moving his lips to the curve of his throat and dragging his hands up his sides, scraping his nails over skin and leaving thin red lines behind.

He reached down with the hand still coated in Tony’s slick and drug it over his cock before lining himself up against Tony’s swollen pucker. He pressed in, one swift stroke, and his breath caught and rattled in his chest as he bottomed out.

Tony said his name again but this time it was a purr as he stretched and arched his back, thighs squeezing around him and knees pressing in against his skin. His muscles were twitching down around his cock, slippery heat all around him.

His mate murmured something but it turned into a sharp whine when Bruce started moving, rolling in with hard deep thrusts. He squirmed under him, hips tilting to accept him better, altering the angle to suit him more.

Bruce pressed his mouth against Tony’s collarbone, closed his eyes, and let Tony reach for him as he snapped his hips up sharply, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoing between them. His vision blurred and paled as Tony shivered in return. He tightened his knees on Bruce’s hips and propelled himself down with a needy little motion, as if wanting him, impossibly, deeper inside.

“Bruce. Brucebrucebruce.” Tony panted, open mouthed and desperate, as hands gripped his shoulders, slipping in the sweat clinging to his skin. He was begging with his voice, with his body, demanding more. “Please.”

“I’ve got you. Relax. Shh.”

Tony whined in his ear before unclenching his hands as tension drained out of his body. Bruce’s vision darkened, awareness narrowed, at the sound because that was _submission_ , intuitive obedience, he could hear it and feel it as his mate did as told.

After that it became hard to focus, hard to see straight, hard to keep his head or a sense of time. There was just Tony underneath him and tight around him, the desire to be locked deep into his mate to fill him with his seed, to see him full of his pups.

He drove into his mate with fierce smooth strikes while reaching between them to grasp Tony’s cock. Tony writhed and swore, the scent of his arousal growing thicker in the air as he got closer to his peak. He could feel his own finish creeping up, a warm thrum and tightening in his stomach and lower. His omega was shaking and when he pushed in again he felt him spasming around his cock.

A few rough strokes as he ground forward and Tony was shouting, eyes screwing shut as he spilled over his hand.

Bruce strained to follow, mindlessly rutting into passage convulsing around him. He lost himself in it, wasn’t sure how long it took, a few passes or a few dozen but then he was pressed in to the hilt, ties curling, and emptying himself with small stuttering movements. Tony arched up again, as if eager to accept his release.

They slumped together, a sticky mess of limbs and frantic breathing that slowly smoothed out and deepened. He could feel Tony unwinding and going limp, heat temporarily lessened after the mating. The haze over his brain receded like it usually did, urge to mate dulling.

There was a basic pattern to heats and ruts, peaks and lows. Alphas wanted to mate at the top of the waves then sooth, protect, feed, and take care of in the valleys. For an omega the peaks were full of almost frantic need and the following lows were spent tired and lethargic, resting up for the next wave.  

It was kind of like muscle memory to roll out of the bed and head to the the kitchen to gather water, crackers, and a protein bar for his mate, to pause at the linen closet for new sheets, and take it all back into the bedroom. He nudged the other man and got a grumpy grunt in return.

“Don’t be a child.” He sat on the edge of the bed and studiously ignored the baleful glare his omega fixed on him. “Drink this.”

Tony plucked the water bottle from his hand and sat up, leaning heavily against the headboard. He drained half of the bottle at once then accepted the protein bar, nose wrinkling as he looked down at it.

Bruce shuffled to the bathroom next, grabbing washcloths and turning on the sink to wet them. He used one on himself then tossed it into hamper. He was reaching for a towel when a glimmer of gold catching the light drew his attention.

He started to reach for it then stopped, brow furrowing. The case for Tony’s birth control, little white pills developed by the best and brightest in omega biology at Stark Medical, was sitting on the back of the sink gleaming in red and gold.

It was odd place for them, Tony usually kept them by the side of the bed or down in the lab, but then again he’s once found Tony’s phone in the produce drawer of the refrigerator. In comparison the bathroom wasn’t that far off. Tony had probably put them there last night before they’d gotten in the shower and forgotten about it.

He took the case back into the bedroom along with the washcloth and towel only to find Tony had wiped off with the edge of the sheet, curled up around one of the pillows and gone back to sleep.

Not surprising, really. Tony slept during his heats like he was trying to make up for all the sleep he missed. He’d wake up when the symptoms of the heat got to be too uncomfortable and the need became overwhelming and Bruce would have to try to get him to eat and drink before he passed back out.

Usually there was a warning before the actual heat started, a few days of pre-heat. Sometimes that meant a slightly elevated temperature, cramping, increased appetite, and a stronger sense of smell, among other things, as hormone production picked up and an omega’s eggs dropped. Preheats could vary in length but Bruce didn’t think he’d ever heard about someone completely skipping it.

Though he had noticed Tony running a little warmer than normal last night but not so much so that he’s expected his mate to go into heat. It was, however, possible that his perception had been colored by the fact Tony’s heat wasn’t due for another 2 weeks. There was room for variance, a day or two in either direction, but 2 weeks was strange considering how regular Tony usually was.

Omega biology, and secondary genders in general, weren’t his area of expertise, though he’d gotten the usual amount of education in college and maybe done a little extra research when he and Tony had decided to bond. He’d wanted to understand his mate and all those little quirks of biology better.

It wasn’t enough to form an idea of what might have caused such an early onset heat. The possibilities were near endless; emotional response, environmental reaction, purely biological. Human bodies were fickle.

When Tony’s heat was over he’d ask him about it, see if it had happened before, get a baseline to work from. There wasn’t much else to be done until then.

\--

Tony’s heat broke after two days, just as suddenly as it had started, much to the surprise of both of them. Tony’s cycles were usually a good bit longer than that, 5 or 6 days from preheat to the last tired waves.

There was usually a winding down period where hormones returned to their usual levels and the omega stuck close to their heat partner to avoid heat drop. Instead had Tony woken up, sore as hell but feeling normal enough. No moodiness or excessive tiredness or strange anxious or empty feelings or any of the other things Bruce had asked him about. No apparent risk for drop or any indication of what had caused it to come on and then pass so quickly.

Bruce had fussed over him for as long as he’d allow it, so about 5 minutes, before he was in the shower, rummaging around for food, and buried back in the biolock issue. He’d waved off his mate’s attempts to take a real look at him or worse, get him to see a doctor (“The right kind of doctor, Tony.” Bruce said while frowning at him.) and in the end Bruce had given in.

Frankly he wouldn’t mind having super short heats in the future. As much as he enjoyed marathon sex he would have no problem going through the rest of his life without going into heat ever again. He’d always hated the entire process, his body being outside of his control, that constant feeling of being too hot, the never ending itch under his skin, the need curling in his gut. Even worse was the way his brain slowed down and got fuzzy as everything narrowed down to needing to be taken and filled as often as possible. He couldn’t think like that, could only feel and want and need.

Menopause couldn’t come soon enough.

Unfortunately it had been, in all likelihood, just a weird fluke and wasn’t worth dwelling on. Easier said than done for Bruce and Tony understood that. It had to be a weird thing for his alpha to have him suddenly drop into and then out of his heat and then completely circumvent the usual ‘process’. Tony’s people skills weren’t the best but for the most part Bruce was easier to understand than most and it wasn’t hard to wrap his mind around what might have been bothering him.

Which was why he wasn’t making a big deal out of all of the touching.

About a week after the strange heart Bruce had started, for lack of a better term, petting him. Anytime they were together and both of his hands weren’t occupied he would reach out and touch him, drag his fingers over whatever bit of bare skin he could find, and then start rubbing small circles on the spot, usually on the back of his hand.

Tony didn’t think he was doing it consciously because sometimes he would catch himself and look startled then confused and finally a little embarrassed as he pulled away. It was one of those little things that reminded them of their secondary genders by creeping in when they weren’t looking.

At first he’d just let it happen because he thought it was helping Bruce out but after two weeks of the touching and petting he had to admit that maybe he was starting to like it more than he should. He wasn’t used to so much casual touch, even after they’d first mated he and Bruce hadn’t been a particularly touchy-feely pair. Steve, Sam, and Bucky were always touching: standing shoulder to shoulder, knees pressed together, fingers intertwined, breathing each other's air, and looking at each other like they’d hung the moon and stars. They acted like they needed each other, parts of a whole, and all wrapped up in each other.

That had never been the sort of thing he enjoyed, or had never thought he would enjoy at least, and yet he found himself leaning into Bruce’s touch and a soothing warmth spreading over him when they were in contact. More than that he was more aware of his mate, picking up his scent stronger than he ever did outside of his heat. He wanted Bruce close and found he was getting agitated when he wasn’t, like some kind of teenager with their first crush.

It didn’t make any sense no matter how Tony looked at it and he had spent more than a little time letting it roll around in his head with all the other stuff he kept up there. It wasn’t some kind of new mating honeymoon thing because they were over two years past that point. He shouldn’t suddenly crave Bruce’s touch or find himself more preoccupied with that chemical and ink scent, but he was.

So much so that he found himself sitting on the kitchen counter, watching the other man cook, and offering no resistance as Bruce touched him. Rather he leaned scooted closer and leaned back on his elbows to give his mate better access.

Bruce’s hand had started on his knee, just resting there in between chopping and slicing. Then it had work it’s way to his thigh, stroking while he assembled his sauce. Then, when he’s settled back on his elbows, Bruce had moved up to his stomach, stroking along the bit of skin that had become exposed when his shirt had ridden up. His shirt had crept up a little more, helped along by Bruce’s hand, and now fingers were resting against the flat plane of his stomach, just below the navel, while his thumb swept over his skin. For the first time since he'd woken up his stomach wasn't giving him any trouble so even if he hadn't liked it he would have been willing to tolerate it.

His stomach had been upset all day; nothing serious, just a slight queasy feeling that had him frowning at food and sticking to coffee. He was pretty sure it was a result of eating something that Steve had cooked the night before, which almost always proved to be an awful idea. Cap was a great guy, a literal hero among men, but trying to cook anything that didn’t call for being boiled was just beyond him.

Tony didn’t have a super solider stomach to protect him from Steve’s culinary failures and it was far from the first time he’d found himself feeling it the next day.

“Boss, Dr. McCoy is calling for Dr. Banner.” Friday announced.

Bruce had been helping Dr. Hank McCoy with some research he was doing. something about effects of various forms of radiation on organic tissue and the various strange effects therein (Less because of his big green problem and more because of him being the leading expert in gamma radiation, which was a very important distinction to Bruce.)

Bruce opened his mouth then stopped, eyes darting down to focus on where his hand was resting on Tony. He blinked owlishly then yanked his hand back, familiar sheepish expression cropping up.

“I’ll take it in the office.”

Tony watched him leave the room with a flicker of regret. Rather than dwell on it he reached for the spoon Bruce had set aside and brought it up to taste the pale sauce Bruce had been working on. He flicked his tongue over it curiously (Bruce was always using him as a guinea pig for new stuff). There was a bit of heat then something minty on the back of his tongue and

His stomach clenched painfully then dropped as his throat tightened, something thick and sour rising up in the back. He gagged then jumped down from his perch, just making it to the trash can before retching painfully and emptying his stomach.

When he was done he shuffled over to the sink, throat burning and eyes watering. He flipped on the water then bent down to rinse the bitter taste out. He took stock quickly and found he felt normal enough, not queasy or suffering from lingering nausea.

In fact he felt better than he had before vomiting.

“Friday, make a note. No more eating at Casa de Super Serum if Cap is cooking.”

 


	3. So Own It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is pretty sure he's dying. ...he's not but it's hard to say that's actually something to be happy about in this case.

Tony made it another two days before being willing to concede, at least to himself, that whatever was wrong wasn’t the result of Steve’s less than stellar cooking ability.

It was a week before he finally gave in and did something about it.

The week passed by at an absolute crawl and Tony felt off the entire time. He lucked out, to a degree, because Dr. McCoy’s call was to ask Bruce to come out to San Francisco to do some hands on work with him, which made pretending to not feel like crap that much easier. Normally he would have gone along (Watching Bruce be brilliant was one of Tony’s favorite things) but he had a meeting with the board, and Pepper would have skinned him alive if he’d dared to miss it, and some of his charities needed a little oversight.

Mostly he didn’t want his mate picking up on the fact he didn’t feel well.

He’d been hoping whatever it was would pass before his mate got back but instead it got worse.

It wasn’t a sick feeling for the most part, which wasn’t to say he hadn’t been sick.

Because he had been.

A lot.

Just the smell of food was enough to make his stomach try to flip itself inside out. It was more a persistent sourness in his stomach and the back of his throat that no amount of swallowing would do anything about. It was far from pleasant but a steady stream of coffee kept most of the awful taste out of his mouth and helped to settle his stomach a little.

The coffee, however, did exactly nothing for the constant tiredness he was suffering from. It settled in about two days after Bruce left and at first it was just enough to have him actually going to bed at night but the day before Bruce was due back it was bad enough to make him seriously reconsider the board meeting. He woke up tired and the effort of picking his head up from the pillow and rolling out the bed left him completely drained.

Energy was usually something he had a little too much of (if you believed Pepper and Rhodey at least) but he felt like he had none of it. He faked it well enough, or at least he thought he was. He did his charity rounds, checked in on Research and Development, and had dinner with Rhodey and Pepper one of the nights Bruce was gone.

It had been a normal night. They'd talked shop, SI and Avengers related. He asked about Rhodey’s new girlfriend, a navy lieutenant named Monica who his friend had blandly informed him he wouldn’t be meeting anytime soon (Rhodey claimed his last two girlfriends had dumped him because they hadn’t wanted to compete with his ‘wife’.) Pepper had done her best to deflect questions about how things were with her and Happy, though she hadn't hesitated to inform him tartly that her boss was a jerk so she barely had time to pursue a serious relationship. (Tony was fairly certain she set her own hours so he hadn't dignified it with a response.)

Then he’d gone back to the tower, passed out on his couch because the idea of dragging himself to the bed had just been too much, and woken up halfway through the night to throw up everything he’d had at dinner.

If he was a more reasonable person he would have taken himself down to get checked out before the meeting; the tower had a full medical staff, specially selected and tailored to fit the...unique set of people who lived there. It would have taken nearly no time or effort at all to head down and have someone look him over. Vitals taken, a cup peed in, maybe some blood draws and he’d be on his way to letting the staff figure out what the hell his problem was.

It was what he paid them (extremely well) for after all.

Instead he got dressed, considered eating something and settled on some green juice and coffee then headed out to meet Pepper.

He would, without a doubt, get around to dealing with whatever was wrong.

Eventually.

In his own time. Tony Stark time was actually recognized by everyone who worked for SI as the universal ‘time’ that all things ran on, superseding all other time zones.

It wasn’t like he was in denial. As a general rule Tony didn’t ‘do’ denial, though he was sure any therapist worth their fee would point to his (former) (or not that former) drinking problem as the ultimate denial tactic.

But that would be wrong. He had never drank for the sake of pretending things weren’t what they were or so that he could forget, or whatever the common reasons for excessive drinking were. He drank so he could sleep and breathe and think and maybe because he was every bit Howard Stark’s son no matter what he did.  

Between years of functional alcoholism, having an arc reactor stuck in his chest and the strain it had put on his heart, extended poisoning, and all the weird rays, beams, and abilities he’d been on the receiving end of it would have been no great surprise if something was wrong with him. It was, in his opinion, less a matter of ‘if something is wrong’ and more a matter of ‘what’.

He was in, more or less, a good spot in his life and if Tony knew nothing else he knew that being happy meant it was time for something to go wrong. He just wasn’t interested in knowing what the ‘what’ was just yet.

It was distinctly different from denial.

In a way.

At least it was in his opinion which was the only opinion that mattered.

The board meeting had gone about the same as such things always did, which was to say it had been long, boring, and full of questions he wasn’t in the mood for. The company had taken a hit after all the fun with Ultron (As it turned out a lot of people took offense to the building of an insane murderbot in the middle of an existential crisis who liked to weaponize cities and weren’t ready to let it go just yet) and a year later things still hadn’t quite rebounded so there was a certain amount of wariness and skepticism.

New projects were talked to death, all of their research triple checked, every step the company made and press release treated like it was some kind of bomb.

And if he was being honest with himself it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own that things were like this now. For the most part he was surrounded by competent and decent people, having long since bought out those who were loyal to Stane (In the world of business you couldn’t just fire people for being willing to back stab you, but you could throw enough money at them to make them go the hell away and if Tony had nothing else he had tons of money.) and things with Ultron had scared the hell out of them.

It could have been much worse. They could have lost more than just some stock points (a lot of stock points) but they’d managed to get away without significant layoffs or shutting down any facilities.

But it could have gone that way.

He understood the hesitancy to act and branch out, to take risks when things weren’t yet back to where they’d been a year ago and public opinion of him (and thus the company) was still shaken.

Hell, it shaken his confidence in himself.

The first few months after Ultron had been a bad time all around. Pietro had almost died (had died maybe. It was hard to be sure one way or the other when Wanda was involved and at a few points she’s literally been the only thing keeping her brother alive) and his recovery had been a long one, every government in the world had been outraged, terrified, and demanding to know how something like Ultron could have happened, Jarvis had been gone and as interesting as Vision was he wasn’t Jarvis and as helpful as Friday was she wasn’t either, he and Bruce had left the team and there were a few times when he’d been sure Bruce was going to leave him as well.

They’d worked past it for the most part. The Maximoff twins had helped him set up relief funds and plans for their country, which had been no small feat. Sokovia wasn’t just a matter of rebuilding because...well, when it came to the city Ultron had raised there was nothing to rebuild.

It was literally a giant ugly crater.

There just wasn’t much to be done except maybe filling it with some water and making some instant lakefront property.

Which seemed like it was probably in bad form.

It was about relocation, starting thousands of lives over from nothing, about jobs and infrastructure and a million little things that took more than just money to fix.

He and Bruce had come back to the tower, though Bruce was strictly ‘no Hulk unless the world is literally about to be blown up and there are no other options’, and SI was bouncing back, slowly but surely.

He didn’t begrudge the people in his company for being unsure and trying to step lightly while they regained their footing.

Normally it didn’t bother him that much.

And yet as the meeting wore on and his head started pounding he found himself considering, very seriously, just getting up and leaving. The sourness in the back of his throat was trying to push its way up, settling across the back of his tongue. He tried swallowing it, and the spit constantly pooling in his mouth, back and each time his stomach lurched and rolled.

When it was all said and done he left without a word or any of the handshakes, family talk, and offers for dinners or lunches that usually happened after a meeting. Instead he headed for the nearest bathroom.

He supposed it was a good thing he hadn’t actually eaten anything yet because there wasn’t much to throw up. Throwing up nothing but liquid was familiar in a depressing way that he didn’t want to put too much thought into.

He rinsed out his mouth and stepped out to find Pepper waiting for him.  A look around found the hallway empty; no doubt a result of Pepper hurriedly corralling everyone and escorting them elsewhere.

One of her major skills, aside from basically running the company, when she’d been his PA was covering for him when he wasn’t at his best.

She was as immaculate as ever, not a single hair out of place, suit perfectly pressed, and her ‘social’ smile firmly in place, though he could see the tightness around her eyes. He liked to think himself an expert in the field of Pepper Potts’ facial expressions and he knew worry when he saw it.

It was another thing that was very familiar to him.

“Tony-”

“I’m fine.”

Pepper did something with her face that was equal parts a skeptical grimace, annoyed sigh, and fond eye roll. She turned to head down the hallway toward the ‘Avengers and CEOs only’ elevator back by her office. Pepper’s PA, a pretty blond female omega with a fondness for headbands and knee high socks, met them in front of the elevator with a stack of papers in one hand and a water bottle and a small brightly colored bag of cookies in the other.

He didn’t know much about her, beyond that she was a biochem major Pepper had scooped her up from Oscorp (and Tony always approved of taking things from their competitors, especially Oscorp) and that she was, apparently, invaluable.

“Thank you Gwen.” Pepper took the water and cookies to pass them over to him. He took them, eyeing the bag. Triple ginger snaps.

His stomach grumbled unhappily just at the thought. Then again it did that about just about everything so clearly it was no longer to be trusted.

“I hope those are okay.” Gwen said, juggling the papers and folders to pass some over to Pepper. “My mom is pregnant, so I had them already, and she says they really help with the nausea and...uh. Did I say something wrong? It’s not my business or anything but I’ve got a really good nose and I know morning sickness can be really bad so I thought it would help and..oh. OH. You didn’t kn-oh.”

Omegas had, of the secondary genders, the most sensitive sense of smells. On the most sensitive end there were those who could scent minute changes related to emotion, giving them an almost empathic nature. It wasn’t unusual for an omega to be able to pick up on pregnancy in other omegas and beta women earlier than alphas or betas, especially if they were already spending a lot of time around someone who was pregnant.

Tony knew that, of course, but now he let that knowledge come fit into a spot alongside the blond’s words.

Gwen was saying something that sounded like an apology but it was static to him. His mind was working, jumping frantically to process and consider, bits and pieces rearranging themselves then snapping into place to make a clear picture.

Very clear.

Frightening clear.

His heart clenched.

He hadn’t even considered-

How had he missed this?

He never missed anything, it was impossible for things to slip by him.

Pepper’s eyes darted over to him and then her face scrunched up into something...complicated.

\---

Wanting children was supposed to be something every omega wanted. They were supposed to be hardwired, biologically inclined, with the near consuming desire to be mated and have pups but that was something that Tony had never felt outside of being in heat.

Tony didn’t have anything against kids for the most part, though he did find the incessant talking kind of grating (the irony wasn’t lost on him). And, to his credit, he felt that way about most people so that didn’t really mean anything.

His major issue with kids, in so far as he had one which he didn’t really, had always been that he was expected to see babies and children and feel some kind of pull, an undeniable maternal urge, and want to coo and cuddle and have his own.

There was nothing like that for Tony and never had been. He understood that some people felt it and, in fact, that lots of people did and that it was kind of imperative for the continuation of the human race that people continued to want to have children.

He just didn’t think of himself as one of those people who was meant to do the baby thing. He just...didn’t feel anything about it one way or the other and if that was outside of the norm for an omega then it was just another strange thing about him.

There were tons of strange things about him.

He’d come by his eccentric billionaire title honestly.

His life had never lended itself to stopping and thinking about things like seriously settling down and starting a family or any of the things that came along with that.

MIT and then his parents dying and the company and Stane and the Ten Rings and the suit and the arc reactor and nearly dying so many times that it was actually starting to become really depressing...there had never been a point where he had felt like he could really give that sort of thing serious thought.

It just-

His life hadn’t been that kind of life.

It still wasn’t.

Deciding to have kids didn’t make any sense for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that his mate was a living breathing gamma bomb who was also teeming with some offshoot of the super soldier serum and Tony couldn’t even begin to fathom what that would do to-

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes trying to stop his brain from finishing that line of thought because he just wasn’t prepared to let it play out yet.

Not that he had much of a choice because Rhodey had brought him half a dozen different pregnancy tests (Rhodey was an actual saint and had responded to Tony’s terse ‘I think I’m knocked up, need tests’ without a single question.) and it was a veritable collection of plus signs, double lines, and ‘Pregnant’.

It wasn’t leaving a lot of room for doubt so Tony was past the ‘this is impossible’ point and had settled into ‘how the hell did this happen?’.

Well

He knew how.

He had obviously been present for the how.

‘Why’ and ‘when’ were more accurate.

He looked at himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink, considering the way his threadbare t-shirt clung to the flat plane of his stomach. He tried to imagine himself differently, softer, heavier, and rounder, then banished the thought.

What the hell was he doing?

“Hey, Tone?” Rhodey rapped lightly on the door as he spoke. “You okay in there?”

That was a loaded question if ever he’d heard one.

Tony looked over the assembled tests. 

He’d always been careful, had managed to avoid this very scenario for years, over half his life without a single hiccup or scare. He was diligent, borderline obsessive if he was being honest with himself, but something had gone wrong where it never had before and now he had a bunch of plastic sticks taunting him with his error.  

He had slipped up somewhere. He wanted to know where, wanted to sift back through his thoughts, but where he could normally juggle a series of complex formulas or thoughts at once there was only one thing he could concentrate on.

It was rattling around in his head, echoing and demanding he pay attention. His chest felt tight and it was hard to breathe. He felt splintered, hazy and 

He was pregnant.

Him. 

Pregnant.

He and Bruce were going to-

He sucked in a breath through his teeth and clenched his hands around the edge of the sink. “Well, I’m pregnant, so I’m leaning towards ‘no’. Whiskey would probably help.”

There was silence on the other side of the bathroom door and then Pepper’s voice, pitched low and careful “Do you want to call Bruce? Your phone is out here.”

He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less.

Calling Bruce meant talking and decision making and acknowledgement and following that train of thought. Though, logically, there was only one decision that made sense and he knew that. Bruce would know it too; there was too much risk and too much they didn’t know, wouldn’t be able to predict what would...result.

One option. 

He knew that.  

“No.”

He could wait a day for Bruce to get back before unleashing all of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve rewritten this so many times and I still kind of hate it but! Sometimes you just gotta make it work.


	4. Ignite Our Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has an epiphany. He hates epiphanies. Bruce is not helpful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of references to The Incredible Hulk and less in depth references to the Fantastic Four and mutants.

Tony left the bathroom to find Rhodey and Pepper in his kitchen, talking together quietly while hovering over the stove. Once upon a time they would have found nothing but coffee, dried fruit, and liquor in his kitchen but Bruce had a thing about ‘real food’ and occasionally eating it so there were actually edible things around.

Usually.

Pepper spotted him first. She had a box in her hand and was turning to face the stove when her eyes fell on him. She seemed to hesitate for a moment and he could read the tension around his eyes.

He’d intended to come out and tell them he wasn’t in the mood for company and needed time to think. It was partially true; he did need time to think about what he was going to say to Bruce and figure out how to handle things quickly and quietly, but he also didn’t want to do...whatever it was that came after confessing to your friends that you were pregnant.

He didn’t know what the standard reaction was. Were they supposed to be happy for him, roll out the ‘congratulations, you’re knocked up with a half Hulk!’ signs? Were they supposed to talk about it? Did he need to tell them the many many reasons it wasn’t going to work out and that they might as well forget all about it?

He wasn’t sure on the etiquette in this kind of situation.

It would have been better if he was alone and could have just handled things without letting anyone else know. It was just better, easier, that way.

“Rhodey wanted to order out but I’m sure you’ve been doing that since Bruce left.” Pepper flashed him a small smile.

He frowned, the prospect of food making his stomach turn. Pepper must have caught the gesture because she stopped what she was doing, brow furrowing in obvious worry.

“You feeling okay?”

He shook his head while dropping down onto one of the stools that sat by the counter. He knew better than to try to help them with whatever they were making; it could only end in sadness and a penthouse full of smoke.

His ability to feed himself began with toast and coffee and ended with sandwiches and smoothies and most attempts to go beyond that had always gone...poorly. Domestic things and Tony Stark just didn’t go hand and hand.

“Everything I eat makes me sick so I think I’ll pass.”

Mostly everything. Those cookies Pepper’s assistant had given him had settled in his stomach without any ill effects. They hadn’t tasted good, at all, but the temporary relief and being able to hold something down made the taste worth it.

Rhodey shot him a look. “So your plan is to just not eat?”

“I do find I spend less time vomiting my insides up if I don’t eat, yes.” Tony wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated the looks his friends were wearing; Pepper looked exasperated and Rhodey looked skeptical. “The data can’t be argued with.”

“You can’t not eat Tony, you’re-” Pepper stopped abruptly, mouth shutting and lips pressing into a thin line. She shook her head and turned around, crossing over the cabinets and rummaging around, pulling out small boxes and tins to look at and then dismiss.

What she hadn’t said hung in the air uncomfortably.

She was right, in a technical sense. He had been doing a  shit job at eating which probably wasn’t conducive to a healthy pregnancy, especially considering the early stage of development.

And it wasn’t like he enjoyed being sick constantly and, frankly, it was pretty inefficient on the part of the...whatever he was carrying to make him as sick and tired as he was. It didn’t exactly fill him with any positive feelings towards his current situation.

So far he found all the things he assumed were symptoms to be irritating distractions. He couldn’t imagine anyone being excited at the prospect of months of fatigue and nausea.

Then again the exciting part was the end result, not the process, and that much Tony could understand. The moment when he finished a project and was able to stand back and look at what he’d thought up and built was the best part. Thinking something up and then using his own hands to make it a real thing never got old.

But this wasn’t like that.

Not really.

Pepper seemed to settle on a small box of tea. She ran some water into a cup and popped it into the microwave. Tony didn’t make the face he wanted to make or tell her he had no interest in drinking any of Bruce’s leaf water but he thought about doing so very seriously.

“So.” Rhodey started and Tony just knew he wasn’t going to like whatever was coming next. “What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking I could probably cut the weight on your armor by 5 percent and up efficiency by 2 percent if I use this new mechanism I’ve been working on for the shoulder missiles.” He had been thinking about that earlier. He needed to run some simulations and consider materials but-

“Are we doing that thing where we just don’t talk about what’s going on?” Rhodey asked. He was hovering over the stove, stirring a deep red sauce in one pot while pasta boiled in another.

Pepper made an alarmed noise.

Tony blinked, taken aback. “What?”

“Are you about to tell me that’s not what you do when you’re upset?” Rhodey managed to make it sound like a genuine question, as if they hadn’t been friends for over twenty years and he didn’t know him better than, probably, anyone else in the world.

“I am not ‘upset’.”  

He wasn’t.

He was just...something that wasn’t upset. Teetering on the edge of panic, maybe, but not upset.

Teenagers and little old ladies got upset.

“It would be fine if you were upset. Or were happy, if you wanted to be. I mean...I don’t know.” Pepper looked at Rhodey as if asking for help. The older man just blinked in reply. Pepper scowled then turned back to Tony.

“I’m guessing this wasn’t planned-” He did make a face at that because no, he really hadn’t planned to be carrying a potential gamma monster. Pepper ignored him. “And I won’t say it isn’t surprising.”

“Understatement.” Rhodey broke in. “Huge understatement. I half expected to get here and find out you were fucking with me.”

Pepper shot him a look and again Rhodey just blinked, which only earned him a sharper look.

Tony rubbed a hand over his eyes, tuning out of their silent argument, not sure where to even begin. He was tired, his head was pounding and buzzing anxiously and, of course, he was fucking pregnant. He liked to think he had a high tolerance for things not going according to plan and an abnormally fantastic ability to roll with the punches but he was just at a loss.

He knew they were trying to help but emotional introspection didn’t sound appealing.

Pepper set the steaming mug down in front of him; Tony could smell ginger and lemon when he breathed in.

“Do you have a problem with my coping techniques?” He asked finally, shooting a tired glare at the other man.

“Do I have a problem with you being emotionally stunted? Sometimes.” The other man looked up at him, serious gaze in contrast to his teasing tone. “You know Pep and I will back you up no matter what but it’s easier to do that when you aren’t doing things like slowly dying of palladium poisoning and not telling anyone. Just...putting that out there.”

Tony wrapped his hands around the mug. “I can’t believe you’re still angry about that. It’s been years.”

Pepper snorted rudely then, expression softening: “Of course you’ll want to talk to Bruce first but whatever you decide we’re here if you want to talk.”  She finished with a wan smile. “And here if you don’t.”

He was willing to concede that he did, perhaps, have a tendency to try and deal with things on his own and had shut out his friends and team on more than one occasion, though some were more notable than others.

The palladium. His panic attacks. Ultron (though Bruce had helped with that so maybe it didn't count)

He was also able to see that more often than not that tendency caused nothing but trouble. And maybe there was some merit to talking about things even if he already knew what the right solution was,.

But it wasn’t anything he wanted anyone else to have to deal with on his behalf.

Tony looked down into his cup, tilting it towards him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

\---

Tony woke up to silence or, rather, the lack of background noise pulled him to wakefulness. When he was alone he slept with the TV or music on, not ever really listening but needing the noise.

He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dimness of his bedroom, then sighed and looked to the side, eyes seeking out the clock on the bedside table.

There was a shuffling noise nearby. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“‘s fine.” He muttered. 9:00 peered back at him in glowing red letters. “What’re you doing back so early?” Accounting for the time difference and the distance Bruce must have left California-

“One of Dr. McCoy’s associates,” The bed dipped under Bruce’s weight. “Has the ability to teleport long distances and was coming to the city today.”

“How was that?” Tony asked, rolling over to look at his mate. Bruce smiled at him, eyes bright, before settling down with his back against the headboard.

“It involved moving through a hell-like dimension which, in the long run, is preferable to a plane or quinjet.”

"Sure." Tony didn’t bother trying to hide his skeptical look. He understood, and respected, Bruce’s plane issues but having had a little experience with rips in the fabric of space he wasn’t sure he agreed with his mate’s assessment.

“On the subject of enhancements," Bruce said. "McCoy’s work on radiation and mutation is fascinating. He’s not just looking at the radiation and the changes it can cause but the reasons behind it and the differences. Why the different results, why are some people impacted and others not, why do people in the same circumstances end up so radically different? The twins for example survived where dozens of other ‘volunteers’ didn’t but, even though they were both affected by the same source, the results were not the same.”

Tony could tell his mate was working himself up into a serious ‘theory’ moment so, tired as he was, he pushed himself up to give Bruce his full attention.

He’d spent most of the night awake, pacing the penthouse and then tossing and turning in bed, mind preoccupied with what exactly he was going to tell his mate. Normally he’d just go for the blunt approach, put whatever it was out there with his usual showmanship and then work from there, but that hadn’t felt right.

Then he’d tossed around the idea of just not saying anything and just deal with it himself but that hadn’t felt right either. Besides Bruce was his mate and that meant he was more aware of his scent than the average alpha. He would notice the shift sooner rather than later.

He’d thought back on how Bruce had been acting before he’d left, the almost absentminded contact and how close he’d been keeping, and he couldn’t help but think the alpha was already aware but hadn’t put it together consciously.

Instinct could make him want to stay close to Tony, make him want to protect and take care of him, but it couldn’t tell him why. But Bruce had done some medical work when he’d been on the run and had to have encountered pregnant omegas and betas during that time so eventually it would come together.

He hadn’t come up with any great plan so it looked like he was just gonna play it by ear.

“Why do some of us, when exposed to things that would kill most of us, just change instead? Not just the twins, but numerous others. The Fantastic Four-” Tony frowned because as pretentious as ‘The Avengers’ sounded (and that had been Fury’s doing anyway) Fantastic Four was just above and beyond, and he would know. “Are another example. All four touched by the same cosmic radiation but each adapted differently. Alternately there’s gamma radiation which seems to create nothing but monsters.”

Bruce paused, eyes darkening, and Tony knew he was thinking about Blonsky and Sterns. Bruce was of the opinion that his blood had turned the men into monsters; Tony was skeptical, to say the least of the matter.

Blonsky was...well there were no words for what Blonsky was. Tony had read all the files and he still couldn’t fathom how anyone had thought hiring that guy and pumping him full of 70 year old serum was a good idea to begin with. General Ross had really taken his weird daughter issues to a whole other level with that bit of decision making. Getting a dose of what Bruce had hadn’t been what had made that guy a monster but, yes, it had made him a bigger badder monster. And maybe psychotic.

The psychotic part wasn’t being debated, because he absolutely was, just whether or not he was an evil narcissistic violent prick naturally or not. Tony leaned very heavily towards ‘nature’ on that one.

Sterns was, last they’d gotten word from SHIELD, (and Bruce checked in often because he enjoyed making himself miserable) still had a massive head and remained completely insane as a result of his exposure to Bruce’s blood.

Supposedly. Tony had (of course) read all of Sterns’ available notes and dug into everything the man had ever so much as breathed on and he wasn’t so sure that guy had been all the way together before meeting Bruce.

As far as Tony was concerned Bruce’s blood may have played a role in changing Blonsky and Sterns but it hadn’t turned them into monsters.

How could it when Bruce and Hulk weren’t monsters to begin with?

Oh.

Tony tried to avoid epiphany moments because they were always a result of him having been wrong about something before, and he hated being wrong, but he was without a doubt having a moment of awareness.  

“Are you still feeling sick?”

He blinked, realizing belatedly that he’d stopped actively listening to his mate and had curled an arm over his abdomen almost protectively. Bruce was staring at him, brow furrowed in thought. Tony grimaced.

Right. When Bruce had left he’d still been claiming food poisoning.

“Sick is...an interesting way to put it. Not inaccurate, really, all things considered but I think, in a technical sense, the answer is ‘no, I’m not sick’. And, coincidently, I feel fine for the first time in over a week. Pepper would probably say it’s all the ginger tea she made me drink and that I actually ate last night but I’m not sure that’s true.”  

And, now that he’d gone and said that, his stomach was starting to churn and clench up painfully. He looked down, trying not to frown or give in to the urge to rub his stomach in an attempt to sooth it.

This wasn’t the time to get sick.  

He saw Bruce shift towards him from the corner of his eye. “Tony-”

“I’mpregnant.” He pushed the words out in a rush then, slower, kept talking. “Not sick. Just getting my ass kicked by ‘morning sickness’. Which could use a more all encompassing name like ‘all day sickness frequently aggravated by the smell and taste of food.’”

Bruce’s expression flickered from worried to confused to something Tony could only think of as horror and, in spite of himself, he felt...something. A tightness in his chest and a heavy feeling in his stomach.

He waited for his mate to say something, anything, but the alpha just stared at him, eyes wide. Tony felt the heavy feeling trying to rise up and choke him as his heart pounded in his chest. The silence stretched out, an oppressive presence, and Tony found himself looking around the room, swallowing thickly.

He’d thought he’d considered all potential reactions, from hulking out to the potential for happiness, but silence hadn’t occurred to him.

Tony hated silence. He couldn’t sleep or work if it was quiet, couldn’t do anything but drown in his thoughts and that was what was happening; his mind was off and running, guessing at what Bruce was thinking, trying to gauge how bad it was going to be.

His fingers flexed anxiously. “You still in there Big Guy?”

Bruce’s face went completely blank. “You’re sure?”

He nodded. He’d checked to be sure and those little plastic sticks were supposed to be pretty damn accurate. Bruce let out a breath then looked away, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his noise. Tony thought he was in for another long awkward silence.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m pretty sure this was a two person job so you don’t need to apologize for anything.”

“We never...I never even asked if you wanted kids. I just assumed because of everything that... If what I am can be inherited.” Bruce’s voice became fainter and and fainter until it was nearly a whisper. “I don’t want to make any more monsters.”

Tony inhaled sharply. He’s known this was coming, knew Bruce too well to expect anything else, but he couldn’t stop himself from flinching at his mate’s words and the threads of panic and fear underneath them.

It was different hearing it outside of his own head.

The words had bite and force and his ever present omega hindbrain felt it like physical pain. It heard only the rejection of its pup from it’s mate and felt the hurt that came with it. Tony turned his head and swallowed, trying to force that part of himself back like he always did.

Bruce looked immediately contrite. “I shouldn’t have said that like that. I-”

“You don’t make monsters.” Tony spat the words out, arm tightening around his stomach. There was anger suddenly, rushing up and burning through him too fast for him to push it down. “Crazy and Crazier aren’t on you. Blonsky was letting Ross pump extremely questionable serum into his bone marrow for fucks sake. I know you read the reports just like I did so I know you know that he was well on his way to Loki level insanity before the gamma treatment.”

Bruce was staring at him again but this time he looked bewildered. “Tony-”

“And Sterns was almost as obsessed with you and ‘the next stage of evolution’ as Ross is, which is saying something because sometimes I can’t tell if the general wasn’t to dissect you or keep you chained up in some kind of weird sex dungeon and wow, that’s disgusting and I regret saying it, even though it’s completely true.”

“You want to keep it.”

Tony faltered, tripping over what he’d wanted to say next. “What? No.”

Did he?

No.   

Well.

He hadn’t thought about keeping it at all. His first thought (after ‘oh shit’) had been ‘This can’t happen.’ He hadn’t let himself think anything else because he knew what Bruce was going to say and want to do and it made sense.

They didn’t know what Bruce might pass along DNA wise. They had no idea what might result, if it’d be a normal human or some kind of hulk or both. All they had to go on were the two less than encouraging examples of what had happened with Bruce’s blood and it seemed obvious that bringing more of that into the world just couldn’t happen.  

But it wasn’t set in stone. Bruce hadn’t lost his mind. The Hulk helped people, smashed the right things, and had helped save the world. Twice.

He wasn’t carrying some already half insane soldier or creepy professor. It was a blank slate with the potential to not be crazy.  

A potentially superpowered blank slate but that wasn’t any different than the mutants out there, was it? Lots of them ended up perfectly fine. 

There was still the part where Tony was completely unfit to be a parent and didn't have anything resembling a normal childhood to base anything on (Unless being primarily raised by Jarvis and the rest of the staff were good bases.) but he needed to focus on one massive issue at a time. He couldn't get bogged down in things like 'I don't have maternity armor', which didn't even make sense to be worried about because if he really wanted to he could just build some, it would take a week, tops. 

He needed to focus. 

“I haven’t thought about it.” Tony said slowly. He was thinking about it now though. “I haven’t even known an entire day.”

“The actual...baby aside.” Bruce hesitated over the word ‘baby’ and Tony exhaled shakily. “I have no idea what this could do to you, no baseline to work from. It would make you sick or turn you green or...kill you. If it was like me and changed in the womb the damage-”

“I’ve got the idea.” Tony blanched and, not for the first time in his life, wished he was less prone to constructing images in his mind. “Thanks.”

Bruce looked down at his hands. “I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me. All of this stuff is my burden Tony, it shouldn’t be yours.”

Tony tilted his head to the side, acutely aware that that irritation he felt at his mate’s words must have been how Rhodey and Pepper felt about him when he shut them out.

He was going to have to buy them new cars or dedicate some buildings to them.

“I need to think.” He could feel another headache forming.

Bruce shifted and for a second Tony thought he was going to reach out for him. Instead he drew back and left the bed. “I’m going to get some air. Take a walk maybe.”

He didn’t say anything, opting to nod and watch his mate walk out of the room. It put his teeth on edge and felt wrong to just let him go as the part of his brain that did nothing but give him trouble whined about being rejected and left.

Tony couldn’t help but think that ‘Take a walk’ was Banner speak for ‘Vanishing for an undetermined amount of time’. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we’ll be getting back to Bruce’s PoV.  
> MCU canon says Blonsky is still chilling with Ross in Alaska in a cryo-cell. And Sterns is in SHIELD custody being used as a guinea pig. Bruce and Tony aren’t aware of the guinea pig part.


	5. Don't You Love The Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce does the wrong thing for something like the right reasons. Tony makes some choices and some leaps and Bruce is left just trying to keep up.

To Bruce’s credit he didn’t go far. He didn’t have any reason to; he told himself he wasn’t leaving or walking out on his mate so much as making a decision to get a little space to properly process what was going on.

Tony had, with two words, completely thrown Bruce off balance and he wasn’t going to be of much use to his mate that way. Tony needed him to be thinking and able to approach the situation without letting emotions and instincts and selfish wants get in the way.

That’s what he told himself.

He easily fell in with the foot traffic outside of the tower and headed for Central Park without noticing it. He went there often enough that the walk there didn’t take any thought to replicate.

He had to resist the urge to laugh when he realized where he was headed. Tony did like to insist that he did things to torture himself and, as he found a place to sit and considered the families and nannies with small children milling about, he thought there might have been merit to that.

He hadn’t had an actual destination in mind when he headed out but it was as good as any and it certainly satisfied his need to get out of the suddenly too small tower and take a moment to think and breathe, something he needed desperately.

He wasn't under any illusion that leaving had been the appropriate reaction and, in fact, knew that it was about as far from ‘helping the situation’ as he could get but if he always did what he was supposed to do he would have never become the Hulk to begin with.

Or helped Tony build Ultron.

Or been with Tony at all.

He’d resisted the idea of a relationship at first; after Loki’s invasion he’d been more aware than ever of just how much power the Other Guy had and the destruction he was capable of. It had been controlled chaos and yes, Hulk had stayed on task and helped save the world but that didn’t change that he’d ripped apart alien ships like they were toys and handled Loki without breaking a sweat.

That wasn’t the sort of thing you took home and tried to domesticate or be with. There was no dating or sleeping with or mating with someone who had that kind of monster lurking under their skin.

Unless of course you were Tony Stark and refused to be deterred by ‘breathtaking anger management issues.’ Looking back Bruce could say he was glad that Tony had been so persistent in pursuing him because for all his fear of losing control and hurting the other man he was happy and he’d thought ‘happy’ was out of his reach after Betty and the ‘accident’.

It was a different kind of life than he’d imagined himself having when he was younger. It was full of spies, soldiers, and gods and he spent a lot of time overwhelmed, bewildered, and just trying to figure out how he’d ended up where he was, but it was his. He didn’t want it to be anything other than what it was.

He had Tony and their, admittedly unusual, pack and that was more than enough. More than he’d expected to have. He didn’t long for the ‘normal’ life he might have had if things had gone differently and as much as he still loved Betty, because that wasn’t something that just turned off because they’d both moved on, he wasn’t sure he would have done things differently.

He would have liked to not be a walking gamma bomb, of course, but he wanted that along with his life as it currently was. He kept his other side under control, having not had any ‘incidents’ since Wanda had worked them over, and he figured that was as close to the ideal as he was going to be getting.

Children had never entered into the equation. Not in the sense that he and Tony had talked about and dismissed the idea but in that it had literally not been something he’d thought about because he already knew it was something that just couldn’t happen.

Or, no, couldn’t wasn’t the right word. Tony had regular heat cycles which indicated fertility and Bruce had run enough tests on himself to know that everything was still in working order on his end. Though those tests had been purely from a ‘will bodily fluids cause a sexual partner to turn green’ perspective and not from a ‘in a scenario where pregnancy occurred what were likely outcomes’ point of view and that seemed like a glaring oversight now.

So he’d known it was possible but, rather, he’d known it wasn’t something that should happen.

For starters their lives didn’t really lend themselves to thoughts of children and settling down in that kind of way; the world was full of people who wanted both of them dead for various reasons and Tony was gathering more enemies fairly regularly in both his normal life and as Ironman.

Tony enjoyed making people hate him almost as much as he liked being Ironman.

That wasn’t a situation to bring a child into and even if it had been...they weren’t those people. Tony made no secret of his less than stellar childhood and Bruce wasn’t any better. He knew he wasn’t fit to raise a child.

He wasn’t sure he ever had been, honestly.  

He hadn’t exactly had the most normal of childhoods by any standards; his earliest memories were soaked in alcohol and full of yelling and violence and now, years later, he was old enough to know his father’s upbringing hadn’t been much better. His father had made his choices in life but, on some level, he’d just been repeating what he’d seen growing up.

Bruce liked to think he was better but he wasn’t always sure that was true. He was sure that once, before everything had gone wrong, his own father had thought the same thing.

It was a cycle and for all that Bruce had maybe wanted his own family one day (It was an idea that had existed in a far off potential future with Betty, along with marriage, mating, and that idyllic vision of a life he didn’t regret losing as much as he once had) he’d always been afraid of being apart of it. There had been a kind of relief in realizing that his blood, his DNA, was just too dangerous to risk having a child.

Not a happy kind of relief but a cold bitter feeling of ‘Well maybe this was for the best’. What had he ever had to offer a child anyway?

When he’d left the tower the careful control he kept over his feelings had been a little harder to maintain, panic and fear threatening to bubble over. Not dangerously so, there was very little that could make his control slip enough for the Hulk to make an appearance.

For the most part the Other Guy was indifferent to the events of his day to day life and was more of an incessant angry itch in the back of his brain than anything else. Sometimes there were faint impressions of irritation or agitation that felt like they weren’t quite his own but then they always lined up with his own feelings so who could be sure?

He had no desire for the lifetime of therapy he would have needed to figure it out and it was easier to just ignore the flickers of feeling that existed underneath everything else. Even now there was a dim kind of unhappiness there but trying to puzzle out why wouldn’t have gotten him anywhere.

Besides he had his own, easily attributed to himself, feelings to deal with and that was why he’d left the tower.

He couldn’t, didn’t dare, acknowledge that part of himself that wanted to curl around his mate and build a nest and home and watch that potential life grow in him and make sure everything was perfect.

Leaving had been against every single instinct he had to such a degree that it had been almost painful.

But he’d needed the distance to keep himself from reaching out for his mate and giving in to that desire to just ignore all of the bad that would come with this. He had to make himself focus on the bad, the danger, to shut out everything else.

The risks that came along with it...there were just too many and each one his brain supplied was worse than the one before it, and he didn’t know what was just fear and what had actual merit. He knew the odds of passing along what he was were high and that the impact that could have on Tony was already a concern and whatever could happen would only get worse, and more dangerous, with time. Radiation, serum exposure, the strain of carrying a Hulk enhanced fetus as a nonenhanced person and those were just the things he thought were likely issues.

And that was without considering the child. What had happened to him had been his fault, a result of his bad choices. Blonsky and Sterns were adults and, for better or worse, made their own choices as well and if Tony were to decide he wanted to maintain the pregnancy and accept whatever outcome there was that would be his choice to make, but a baby had no choice in what kind of genetics it ended up with.

It didn’t get to decide whether or not it wanted to be a monster and carry the mistakes of its father for its entire life. He had already lived that life, was perhaps still living under the shadow of his father’s actions, and he didn’t want that for anyone else, least of all his own child.

He couldn’t let anyone else be condemned to being a monster because of him and his mistakes, least of all someone without a choice in the matter.

That was what he should have said to Tony, not tried to bombard him with all the potentially horrible outcomes, all of which he knew his mate had to have already considered.

His mate was aware of what he was and could work out the risks without having the thrown in his face like he’d done. Honestly Tony was more aware than most would ever want to be, having been face to face with Hulk on more than one occasion and knowing all too well what the monster was capable of when it lost control. Tony understood the science; he wouldn’t be giving any lectures on the subject any time soon but he’d been interested in everything from the moment they’d met, and had expressed that interest with potentially dangerous (to himself) poking and prodding.  

He should have responded better but in the moment there had just been...a lot. Of everything.

There was something like joy and purely alpha triumph that had flared up along side the shock and panic when Tony had told him. His mate was pregnant, carrying his child, and there was an awestruck warmth that wanted to take hold and bloom inside of him because that was…

It was a new world of potential, of life and events, a complete altering of everything. The thing he told himself he wasn’t allowed to have was happening anyway and that was amazing and changed everything

It was something he’d denied himself, told himself he couldn't have, and yet there is was, real and within reach and

And it just couldn’t happen.

He knew that. He’d known that. That was why he’d shut away the part of himself that thought about children and just let it lie there, never thinking about it or dwelling on it. It was easier to not want something when it was out of reach.

That approach seemed to have done more harm than it had good because now he had no idea where to even begin or what Tony was going to want to do and, admittedly, walking out before they’d had a chance to talk hadn’t done much to help with that.

Bruce knew, or at least suspected, that whatever he was feeling had to be harder for Tony and his reaction couldn’t have made it easier. He had his reasons but that didn’t make it okay to just up and leave without so much as a ‘I’ll be back soon’ or a ‘we’ll talk about this later’.

Or even a very honest ‘This might be the most terrifying thing someone’s ever told me and I have no idea what to say or do and I don’t want to make this worse.’

Most terrifying was an exaggeration, but only just. There was fear there, not just of the situation and the potential outcomes but that whatever happened would have been the wrong choice.

He was afraid that Tony would want to continue the pregnancy and just try to make it work like he made everything else work and just as afraid that Tony wouldn’t want to try at all.

But those were his issues, not Tony’s, and he wanted to keep it that way. He wanted to be objective and supportive, not conflicted and unsure. He wasn’t going to work through nearly forty years of stuff all at once, no, but he could center himself and compartmentalize.

Anything beyond that could wait for another day.

\---

When Bruce returned to the tower Friday promptly informed him that Tony was down in his workshop. He thought there was a note of offended tartness to her voice but he wasn’t sure if it was real or if it was just a product of feeling bad about walking out on his mate earlier.

Both were viable options.

The AI announced his presence as he was walking through the door. Tony was standing in front of a holographic blueprint of a house, phone tucked against his ear. He was manipulating a smaller section of the blueprint, turning it around in his hands, when his eyes flickered up to focus on Bruce. He waved a hand and the chunk of blueprint he’d been working with fit itself back into the main image.

“Hey Pep, just look into that for me and give me a call when we’ve got approval. Or I need to throw money at people. Whichever.”

Under normal circumstances Bruce would have asked what Tony was working on. The other man liked to add and renovate the tower the point of absurdity but he didn’t usually get too hands on with building other facilities.

But Tony was looking at him the way he tended to look when he was considering an especially stubborn problem so it probably wasn’t the best of time for that. That said he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject and, for a long silent moment, it seemed Tony didn’t know either.

His heart was beating hard, a nervous rhythm that he could hear in his ears and feel in his chest, but it wasn’t the near panic of earlier and that was better than nothing, for the most part.

The tension in the air and heavy silence was a stark contrast to how things usually were between them. Tony’s tendency to try and poke or electrocute him when they’d first met aside they’d gotten along quickly and easily; he’d never felt strange about walking into the other man’s workspace and proposing an idea or asking his thoughts on something. Tony had always welcomed the company and been excited to hear what Bruce had to say about things.

Tony continued to stare at him, eyes dark and thoughtful, then shifted slightly, attention returning to the blueprint.

“I guess this is the part where we talk.”

“I have heard that is something other people do on occasion.” Bruce agreed; he was trying for levity but it felt flat to him. Making things less serious, or at least moderately less awkward, was what Tony was good at not him. He tended to make things more awkward, actually.

Tony just nodded absently then, abruptly, his posture stiffened. He went pale and one of his arms curved around his middle; Bruce closed the distance between them before even fully realizing he’d done it.

He wanted to reach for his mate, started to do it, then stopped as Tony’s scent touched his nose. It was still very much Tony, a touch of smoke and sharp citrus, but there was something different under it. A faint impression, not really it’s own scent yet, of something new and...it was hard to put words to. Fresh? Untouched? Clean?

The other man didn’t seem to notice his hesitation at first, busy reaching for a small bowl full of wrapped peppermints. He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth, grimacing as he did. Then he looked at Bruce, eyes narrowing. “What?”

Bruce blinked then took a step back. “It’s...your scent is different.”

He knew logically he can only pick it up because he knows. He was probably looking for it without realizing he’s looking for it, an unconscious attempt at confirmation, now that the knowledge is there.

But he when took a second to reflect he isn’t sure about that. Had he known before? Alphas were supposed to know when their mates were carrying before others did. The connection between a sire and a pup wasn’t as concrete as with the one carrying but scenting was, in theory, supposed to help a bond begin to be formed.

He’d never put much thought into it or how likely that was (anthropology and reproductive biology were subjects he’d always found boring.) but he couldn’t deny that it was distracting.

To put it mildly.

Tony’s expression shifted then shuttered, going blank. “Pretty sure that’s normal.”

“I didn’t expect it.”

“Right.” There was a hard note to Tony’s voice that wasn’t normally there and a furrow between his brows. Then he looked back at the blueprint. “What do you want to do?”

Bruce hesitated; he wanted to ask if Tony was feeling okay, if the morning (or all day rather) sickness was a problem right then, or if he needed anything. But Tony wasn’t one to appreciate excess concern even if it was legitimate.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Everything was muddled and he couldn’t say where he stood, feelings waring with what he knew made sense, but that he didn’t want something to happen that would hurt his mate was the one thing he was certain of.

“That’s vague. I hate vague.”

“It’s a vague situation.” He countered quietly.

“It doesn’t feel very vague on my end. All the puking and the pregnancy tests seem very clear, actually.” Tony’s lips twitched up like he was going to smile but it quickly fell away.

Bruce nodded his understanding then took a deep breath before speaking. Objective. He had to be objective. “You already know that what I am can be passed through my blood and it is likely it would be passed along to a child as well. You’d be sharing a blood supply with something-” Tony twitched and Bruce immediately wished he’d chosen different words. “With a fetus that will likely be a hulk. There’s no way of knowing ahead of time if that would kill you or change you or nothing at all.”

“How long would it take to know if we’re talking hulk baby or not?”

Bruce closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple, unable to stop himself from wondering if Tony was asking to help himself make a choice, to see if they could wait and see, which there was some merit to if the only thing to consider was the Hulk issue, or if he was asking because he'd already made up his mind and wanted to know how long until he knew what he'd gotten into. “What do you want to do?”

Tony didn’t say anything for an impossibly long moment. Bruce opened his eyes to find Tony looking back at the blueprint.

“We’re probably be terrible parents. Maybe worse than anyone else in the tower. No one in their right mind would trust us to raise a kid, right?” Tony looked at him as if for confirmation and Bruce just shrugged. The other man wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t already thought himself and he didn’t disagree. “I don’t drink anymore but I think about it all the time and I don’t know if that’s normal or not. I’m narcissistic, I tried to solve the world’s problems before they started and ended up with a genocidal murderbot and I’m still not totally sure the basic premise of what I wanted to do was wrong, even if Cap did go all Goodwin on me. And you-”

“I’m not sure I want hear this.” Because he was aware of certain...contradictions in his life. Alcoholic father but mated to an alcoholic for one. Tony didn’t drink anymore but he had when they’d gotten together and Bruce had just...tuned it out.  

Tony snorted. “You refuse to be told you aren’t a monster or entertain the thought that you might make something good.”

Bruce looked down at his hands. “I don’t know if that was better or worse than what I thought you were going to say.”

“I’m not getting an abortion.”

He didn't know if that was better or worse either. 

Bruce’s heart skipped a beat and his mouth felt dry, tongue too thick to form the words he wanted to use to say...to say what? No? Yes? Don’t, please, I can't let anything happen to you?

“Not for some religious or moral reasons or anything like that. I just...I don’t think you and I being chronic screw ups should mean we don’t give this person a chance. This just...it’s what I want to do. I’ll make it work for this baby. Kid. I've never just looked at something that was going to be hard and stopped before and it seems wrong to do that when it's a life at stake.” Tony paused, cringing. “Not that I'm doing this because it'll be hard or a challenge. I just...I want to. I want to have this kid."

He let out a shaky breath then continued, rubbing anxiously through his shirt at where the arc reactor had once been. "I was thinking about moving back to Malibu. Rhodey can handle all the hands on stuff with the team and I can develop bigger and better booms from the  west coast.”

And some of that made sense to Bruce, if he let himself push past the part of him that wanted to argue and tell Tony that he couldn’t do this. Stepping down as Ironman for a little while was a given but moving?

“Why?”

“Because what kid doesn’t want a beach as a back yard? He said it lightly and even flashed a smile.

Bruce pushed out a puff of air. “I don’t-”

He didn’t know how he intended to finish that, his brain was already trying to spin off into thoughts of monitoring for potential increases in Tony’s gamma levels and signs of the serum taking effect and fetal DNA testing, which was a subject he suddenly felt like he didn’t know enough about.

“That is rhetorical question Big Guy, the answer is every kid wants the beach as their back yard. Admittedly all the glass and stone and those stairs are probably going to have to go and safety railings and I’m going to have to zoned for alternative energy sources but that shouldn’t take long. I think I can get renovation started in a few weeks.” Tony glanced over at him briefly. “You don’t have to come. You could stay here or...wherever.”

Tony moved away from him, talking as he put distance between them. “You didn’t practically run out earlier because the idea seems like a great one to you and that’s fair. Not exactly part of the plan or anything and I’m not going to ask you to do something you don’t want to do. ...not about something like this anyway. Genocidal robots sure, but I have limits. There’s a guy in San Diego who is, supposedly, the second leading authority on gamma radiation and Dr. Cho has more than a passing understanding of..you at this point so I think if turning green turned out to be a problem they could help with that. ”

Bruce resisted the urge to be offended at the idea of Tony seeking out another expert in his field (It must have been Langkowski. It wasn’t a big community so there weren’t a lot of options and Langkowski was on the West Coast the last time he’d looked into what his peers were up to.) but only just. It poked at the alpha part of him; his mate was going to seek the aid of others instead of him. It meant he wasn’t trusted to protect his family, to do what was needed to keep his mate and pup safe.

It was harder than usual to swallow that part back.

He needed to say something though; Tony had already jumped ahead to planning what he would do without him. (Which was very Tony, he liked to be 5 steps ahead of everyone else at all times.) He wasn’t sure what hurt more; that Tony thought he’d leave him or that he’d already planned for it.

He wanted to explain that he loved Tony even if he was doing something stupid because it felt ‘right’ and that leaving had never been a thought to cross his mind.

He wanted to tell him about his concerns for the child, the ever present fear that his father had been right about them being a monsters and that it was something that went deeper than just the Hulk and even if they worked that part out there were still so many other things.

He wanted to say that he wasn’t sure they could do it because they weren’t those people and how could they possibly raise someone to be a functional human being?

What about the people they fought, the military, anyone who might be interested in getting their hands on the offspring of the Hulk for whatever nefarious purposes, what about people who had issues with Tony as a person (how many times had Tony been kidnapped as a child anyway? Did they have that to look forward to?)

He was floundering, trying to entertain multiple things at once, and he needed a moment to right it all but he couldn’t walk out to do it, not again. Not after that.

Instead he made himself focus on what he knew for certain.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Technically I’d be leaving.” Tony said mildly. “And that’s my choice. All of this is my choice and I’m not going to change it because you don’t like it but I won’t ask you to be part of it if you don’t want to. We both know that doesn’t work out.”

Sometimes Tony walked the line between selfless and selfish so well Bruce couldn’t tell what side he was falling on at any given moment.

“I am not leaving you.” There was a growl to his words he didn’t mean to put there, bits of alpha and ‘mine’ where he normally wouldn’t allow there to be. Tony stiffened then, with exaggerated slowness, tilted his head to the side to show the long tan curve of his neck and it was almost a gesture of submission but he met his eyes while he did it so it wasn’t really giving in at all.

Still it was soothing enough to all the parts that had been willing to bare teeth and remind Tony who was the alpha. Not that it would have done any good; Tony never gave in unless he wanted to. It was something that set Bruce’s teeth on edge just as much as it made him want his mate as much as he did.

“We’re doing this.” Suddenly Tony didn’t look like he was sure if he should be happy not not. Bruce could relate. The same spark of happiness was there, threatening to bloom, but he wasn’t sure if he should let it.

There was still a lot that could go wrong. Lots of perfectly normal things, even, that could go wrong that he hadn’t been considering before but would probably sit up late reading about.

“We are.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Had real life things and then Tony refused to have an actual talk this chapter like I wanted. His mind was made up and when Tony's mind is made up you just go with it. I was going to leave it up in the air a little while longer but this works just as well.  
> Langkowski is a reference to Walter Langkowski aka Sasquatch, who is a noted expert of gamma radiation. And a former Green Bay Packer. Seriously. 
> 
> Next Chapter: Blood draws, research, and the rest of the team.


End file.
